I'm David Friedman, a professional photographer who sometimes gets ideas for photos, designs, gadgets, and other projects. I write about it all on this blog. You can find the meaning behind the name “Ironic Sans” back in the very first post.

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Sunday MagazineAt this site, I republish the most interesting articles from the New York Times Sunday Magazine exactly 100 years ago each week, along with some commentary or context.

August 7, 2006

Idea: The Ant Desk

What do you get for the eccentric executive who has everything? How about the Ant Desk? It’s part desk, and part Ant Farm. How creepy is it to work at your desk while hundreds of ants scurry all around you? Is it distracting? Fascinating? Did some of them get out? Do you think you feel them crawling on your legs? It’s the ultimate desk for nature lovers, bug lovers, and, well, other people who want a weird desk.

How does it work? It begins with a thick layer of glass or clear plastic. This protects you from the ants, and protects the ants from you. Below the glass is an open space with a thick layer of dirt, allowing the ants to crawl in, out, and around their tunnels, caves, and hills. This all rests on top of a sturdy base layer, which doubles as the bottom of the desktop. Small holes around the sides of the desk provide air, while being too small for the ants to escape.

Hundreds of ants will live happily for months, with just a little food and water periodically inserted through the feeding portals. For cleaning, the base layer can be built to slide out on casters like a large drawer, or the glass top may be hinged to open. I haven’t worked that out yet.

And when you get home, you can cuddle up with your loved one in front of the TV and rest your wine glasses on your Ant Coffee Table. The perfect oddity for any living room.

Comments

The hitch with this idea is that the ants still build their colony vertically. the appeal of an ant farm is that you can see in, because it is a tall, thin vertical slice. i’m no entymologist, but i wonder if ants will even build a colony that’s only an inch deep.

Yeah, I thought about that. Most of the ants won’t be visible. But lots of them should still be crawling around on top, especially if there is a citrus leaf or two scattered around for food. Think of an ant hill. Those are crawling with ants above ground. And really, it’s the ants I can’t see that would creep me out the most. -David

Lawl, this is the way it always starts in those crazy moster sci-fi films. “Oh they are just ant’s they can’t do anything, lets take thousands of them and put them in a strange environment….. now where did I put that uranium? OH MY GOD!!!!”

Cool idea though, and I wonder how the ants would do with so little vertical space..

Oh my gosh This is awsome. but you know what would be SOOO COOL? is if you were to put water and fish in it or something so they can swim around, that would be neat. (Of course there would be a removeable top layer so you could clean it or take dead fish out, and a little panel to feed them
cool!

Wow! That is BRILLIANT! I’d definitely get one. It’d be even better if the legs were part of the ant farm and everything too, so they could build the vertical part of the nest into those and you could see inside all the tunnels and everything! That would be awesome!

I would buy it if the sides and the front of the desk were the ant farm. I think if the top of the desk was the ant farm I’d be too distracted. but then again if the front and sides were the ant farm it would be distracting to the people that would be in my office or something. Oh well, it’s a really neat idea. I think i would still buy one…but how would you feed the ants??

Really neat,if you applied the same idea with fish with water that would be phenomenal. (i’ve always liked the mystical touch of water) Well, it looks really well done and a very unique idea. Keep up the good job!

I’d feel bad if any of them died. Why not get with a computer/technology genius, and make the entire top of the desk a computer screen that only generates one image: moving ants. That way the desk will appear to house live ants from a distance, until you look up close. Personal settings can turn them off, make them slower, faster, and all the while no creatures will get hurt.

I think it’s great. I love ants. I once thought of making a bannister that was a fish tank… I’m sure that’s been done though. I thought it would be funny cuz the fish would probably follow your hand all the way up or down the stairs…

Like what someone said above you should make a fish tank desk!! that would be awesome! have a small tube protruding from the desk so you can insert food. And also have a removable lid so u can clean it if necessary!

Like what someone said above you should make a fish tank desk!! that would be awesome! have a small tube protruding from the desk so you can insert food. And also have a removable lid so u can clean it if necessary!

I think this is cool, but since they build vertically, something along the lines of a wall hanging, would work better. Maybe a bookcase with a door,and the door is an antfarm?. File cabinets that have antfarm sides? Desk with antfarm sides, or better yet and antfarm front. So when clients or collegues come in, that’s what they see. The top could connect it all, but if you really want to see them running around the top, make that where you feed them, and don’t put any dirt in the top. Make the top area very shallow.

DUDE i say screw the ants, screw the fish, lets talk about your first floor being strong two-way mirror looking into your basment, and your basment is furnished like a jungle and you cold take homeless people and throw them in there so the live off the land. or just birds and snakes for the less sadistic.

its a totlly awsome idea, but i once had a horrifc experince with antz going down my throat after them starting a colony under my sofa and me going to the bathrom fur a sec and comin back to find like a hundred swimming in my drink, after i already took a sip, so…., im not to sure if id get one, well it depends on the price, HOw much will it cost?

I am a Pest Control Technician and ants do not necesarily build vertically. They branch out kinda like the roots of a tree, out, down, and allover the place. I have often found ants living under a rock without tunneling more than a centimeter down. I LOVE this desk..!!!!

I’ve had this idea, too, but decided it would be unfeasible for my coffee table. However, there’s lots of good ideas to add here.

I would totally put ball bearings in there, which I could move around using a magnetic stylus which would allow me to go bowling for bullants.

Could you possibly include flourescent particles with their food or water supply? It would be cool to turn the light out and still see glowing bugs getting around. Either that, or black-light.

I doubt the dirt would stay in a uniform thickness. The ants would attempt to build a hill, which means a random chunk of the glass would just show packed sand, and the rest would be more sparsely dispersed.

thats so fucking awsome i would totaly buy one for every room, but my girlfriend would make me slep out side in the doghouse with the ants. and that would be uncomfortable…. she’d break the glass because she’s one crazy broad… but at least I’ll be with my Ants!!!!!!

Mabe the desk could be like those self-sustaining micro-ecosystems. the ones that have some sand, salt water, brine shrimps and algae. the alglae would grow from the sunlight and would feed on the shrimps waste while the shrimp would eat the algae.

AWESOME!! I have a regular ant farm, and I LOVE staring at it for hours, watching the little guys scurrying around and digging tunnels. OHH!! I JUST GOT AN IDEA!!! NOT ONLY COULD THE REST OF THE DESK BE PART OF THE ANT FARM, BUT THE DRAWERS COULD BE PART OF IT, TOO!

What you could do also is make it so their is no Air space, and make a Kind of clock where you can put water, and food inside of so the ants can get in their for food, a kind of foraging area, where you can still see the ants, in their tunnels, and put lid on the foraging area.

Hey,
im a lover of intch ants. i collect them and look after them in the large container, but this idea is even better.
now you can do your work and watch what there doing at the same time.
i would like to get one of these ant desks (COOL IDEA)
TREV